


In A Land Of Broken Stars

by Cupcakemolotov



Series: Dance with the Devil [3]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Suggested Porn, greek mythology collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:15:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8086753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakemolotov/pseuds/Cupcakemolotov
Summary: Persephone woke with her bones heavy with mortality and blood in her mouth. And for millennia untold, she roamed the earth - her broken gift of life harsh in her veins. Her cries went unanswered, and each year she lost a little more hope, a little more of the lingering golden power of her kin. Until she heard the first whisper.  Vampire.  Finally, she had the name of a single city:  New Orleans





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [willowaus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowaus/gifts).



_The gods were betrayed._

_Broken upon their own alters, the Greek gods sacrificed one of their own as a scapegoat; a chance for other, more valued kin to flee Olympus and embrace the endless arms of Morpheus. Without the faith of the Greeks, the doors that were so thin between the immortal and mortal realms closed, sealed by the blood of Hades._

_But Persephone lingered, stood on the empty riverbanks that once ferried the souls to her kingdom below the world. Her husband was now bound to the wheel of fate, his soul beyond her reach. In the air were the echoes of her mother’s plea to join her kin, to leave behind the earth she’d loved; only Charon stood beside her._

_“If you remain, you will die.”_

_“All things must die, even gods,” Persephone whispered. “That is the balance of fate.”_

_“He would not wish it.”_

_“My husband is gone. Tied to the wheel of fate, bones crushed and reshaped with mortality.” Persephone stepped into the rivers waters, skin cold. “What do I care for his wishes?”_

_“Death does not gladly give up what is hers,” Charon said simply. “You are the goddess of spring, of growth. What sacrifice would you offer?”_

_Persephone turned, face pale - cheeks stained with fury and grief. “What do you ask of me, Charon?”_

_Pale, delicate hands opened. Cradled gently, was a single pomegranate seed. Persephone stared at it, lip caught tightly between her teeth._

_“Some fates require sacrifice, my Queen,” her ferryman said simply. “It will not be an easy path, it is full of shadow and blood, but one day, you may find the one you seek. And no longer walk alone.”_

 

 

* * *

 

He found her in his garden.

In a thousand years, New Orleans had felt the most like home. A city that entombed it's dead, with its salt water smell and the touch of magic and religion. He'd known death - carried its weight, the iron teeth and power of it in his bones. Death was his keeper, the old and true friend who stood in his shadow. He'd walked with her through the catacombs of Paris, witnessed the horrors of Rome, laughed in the face of the English wars.

Death which had broken his cursed bonds to the mortal wheel, who gave him a monster's choice. Greedy for life, he took it. A king was a king, regardless of a kingdom. So he carved his subjects from the damned, shaped a shadow world against the hot blade of modern religion, the slow grind if the faithless and watched the stories in the stars.

But Klaus loved her.

This golden goddess, with her tumbling curls and defiant eyes. The creature he longed for through all his endless days, those nameless years he walked in this new flesh, the taste of old blood on his tongue. Here she stood, in the garden he'd built for her - the memory of another shared garden at the beginning of his world hot beneath his feet.

Her face had changed - the slope of her nose and the sharpness of her cheekbones, the curve of her mouth. But her eyes… the blue was the same, but more importantly was the expression, the defiance and demand. Klaus was unable to move, feet planted like one of her trees. He was rooted, frozen under the blue of the sky and the shadowed waters of the seas.

"So it is you." Her words were jagged, for all her hardness, there was wildness bleeding into her gaze. Klaus knew that look. Had seen it before, when her tongue tasted of pomegranates and later, when she demanded her crown as his equal. This child of sunshine and spring, in his land of death and shades.

"Yes," Klaus breathed, finally moving his feet of lead. She shifted back, the move so small another would've miss it. He ignored it, hands and lips desperate for her. "I've spent a millennium hunting for any echo of your soul and here you stand."

She lifted her palm, staring at him with feral eyes. "A millennium? And where have you been, husband, that you only know a thousand years?"

"Bound to the wheel," Klaus told her, gaze narrowed. "I suffered through lifetimes of morality, or did you fall unknowing of the gift our kin left me?"

Darkness crawled across the shining vestige of her face, blackened the eyes he knew - the punch of old power, weak but lingering as she bared the sharp points of her fangs. His lungs stilled, arousal a hot fist in his gut.

"Do not speak to me of sacrifice," she snarled before turning on her heel, striding away from him on shapely legs he longed to trace, to learn. Catalogue all the little differences the shade of mortality had carved along her flesh. "You left me."

"When did you fall?" Klaus demanded, following her further from the house, the stares he could feel from the family he'd carved into being. The survivors of their mother's insanity, their father's cruelty.

"I did not fall," was the cold response. "I stood in our river, watched our kingdom empty of souls and took the promise offered me. I have walked this world for time beyond counting, until the stars themselves have changed and I have looked. I took death's malady for a single hope and now…"

It took three strides to catch her shoulders beneath his palm, to sear the feel of her against the bone and muscles. Clumsy mortality might be, but stubborn. She snarled as he spun her, hair wild around her defiant face.

"Now what?" Klaus demanded.

"It appears you did not need me so much after all."

Klaus laughed, hands tightening with bruising force. She struggled, but he would not let her go. His little Queen, his Spring Goddess. "I stole you from beneath the nose of your kin, forced a compromise between gods to keep you and you think a thousand years, a change of flesh would do more than make things interesting? You are mine."

She bared sharp teeth and he matched her with his monster, the double gift of wolf and death. That startled her, the gold in his eyes. His smile widened. "Death is a possessive mistress, an ageless friend. Do you think she forgot your sacrifice, the love of her subjects? Do you imagine that she would let something like the folly of the gods interfere with her plans?"

Slowly, brows bunched in a familiar yet new expression, she touched the curve of his lips. Traced the double edge of his fangs. "What are you?"

"Hybrid," Klaus said softly, unwilling to startle her out of this softening. "A nightmare."

She snorted, darkness fading from her eyes. "Whose?"

He brought one cool palm to his lips, breathed in the scent of her skin. "Not yours."

Her eyes shuttered, but he tightened his grip. "Will you give me a name?"

Her lips purse, lashes flickering, "Caroline."

"I'm Klaus."

"I know," she murmured. She stared up at him, bottom lip sliding between her teeth. Everything he wanted. Here. It was clear that this wouldn't be an easy reunion, but when had they slotted smoothly? They were gods reborn as monsters, the old power lingering in her in a way it never would for him - he who was stripped of his divinity, bound to mortality as a sacrifice.

His Queen had chosen him. Abandoned her kin, walked the earth alone. She carried the same seeds of malady in her veins and chosen solitude. He knew there had been no others who carried death in the world, he would have felt them when he awoke. King of the Damned, he knew each of his subjects, felt the coldness of their souls.

But not hers.

"You hid."

"I hide from nothing," Caroline rejected, voice layering in frost. "Especially from you."

"Then kiss me."

Blue eyes flashed to his, met the challenge there. "Why?"

"I built this garden for you," Klaus told her. He let go of her palm, cupped her newly beloved face. "In each of my homes, a garden blooms for you - but this is my favorite. Do you remember the shape of it, the way it cut through my loneliness each season you left my world barren? Those little sparks of power you left me in my cold kingdom?"

Her eyes shimmered, mouth softening. "Yes."

"Kiss me."

Her lips trembled, breath catching in her throat. But Caroline was correct, she'd never hid. So, hands cool against his beard, eyes and chin stubborn, she slid her lips lightly across his.

The world shifted under his feet - a thousand years of waiting burning through his blood. Hands sliding down her throat, he leaned in and demanded more. Her lips parted, tongue a slick slid against his - she tasted golden, the long lost burn of ambrosia on his tongue. A moan, his or hers, it didn't matter. Klaus was lost, tugged her close and tight, desperate.

Hands in his hair, Caroline trembled as they both went to the rich earth, hands and bodies desperate. He gave and gave, desperate for everything she'd offer. Her mouth was greedy and desperate and when she broke apart in his arms, he kissed away the pale streaks of tears.

"I want revenge."

Klaus lifted his head from her naked breast, looked at Caroline with her red lips and flushed cheeks, war behind her eyes. "Love?"

Her hands cupped his face. "They took you from me."

"They erased you from the stars."

She laughed, the sound low and husky, body relaxing into the earth. He wondered if she knew how closely the earth still followed her, trees and flowers, bending towards her. "I abandoned them. What star could possibly hold more than you?"

He closed his eyes, bent his head, body trembling. She stroked his cheeks, thumbs a soft temptation. "Did you think I would not choose you?"

"I could not find you," Klaus ground out. He lifted his gaze, met hers. Let the bloody truth of what he'd become sharpen his face. "A thousand years, Caroline. No prayer, no shrine, no bloody carnage left me a clue."

"I will not apologize," Caroline told him imperiously, but then her teeth caught her lip and she swallowed. "I had not heard of you, the rumors of your monsters until recently."

"I was not subtle."

"I preferred solitude."

"You'll show me, these places in the world you call ours," Klaus said firmly.

"They are mine and I will consider it," Caroline returned but she smiled, a brilliant thing of sunshine and laughter.

Voices carried from the house and Caroline stilled, gaze flickering over his shoulder. Not from shyness at their nakedness, but from possessiveness.

His cock twitched, body burning for this slight girl and her golden tongue. Caroline carried a possessive soul, a defiant and burning mind, softened only by her sunshine heart. He would never let her go. Had known it the minute their gaze had caught eons before.

"They are related through my human flesh," Klaus told her, kissing the soft skin of her shoulder. "The first to share death's malady with me. I did not have a pomegranate to carry me into eternity, my love."

"You care for them?" Caroline asked, voice curious.

"They are considerably less trying than the last set of siblings I was forced to share the world with."

Those eyes of war met his again. "I will not forget, what they did to us."

Klaus lips curled, dimples bracketing sin. "Neither have I. Nor will I. Lady Death has not abandoned her kingdom, love. She's simply changed the rules to suit her. This time, I will not share you."

Caroline blinked, expression thoughtful. "Death is less forgiving than even I."

"The gods sleep. For now."

Caroline smiled, a slow terrible thing that had once left a kingdom trembling, a world silent in fear. Beloved was his Queen, but her name was feared. "I would like to meet this family, these generals."

"Who am I to deny you?"

A slanting look filled with decadence and want. "Then I just want you."

Klaus stood, pulled her with him. "You've always had me."

"Do not leave me again." A hard, biting command, the faintest vulnerability behind her eyes. Young no longer, his Queen.

"Not if I have to burn all the stars from the sky." His words were a promise, given from a soul born near the beginning of time. From which life had been created and kept safe. No more.

"It may come to that," Caroline whispered, eyes glancing to the heavens. "They will not take kindly to our bargains when the world broke."

"Death comes to all. Her price will be high, when the old things in the world decide to stir."

"They will."

He kissed her palm. "Not today."

"No, not today." Caroline agreed. The she gifted him with another smile. "Show me our home."


	2. Among Our Broken Altars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Greek Vacation goes badly, when Caroline and her mother stumble upon a greek cult. Caroline wakes up with more than a vampire running through her veins, and an echo of more in the distance.

Caroline woke with a nightmare in her veins. Golden on her tongue, the lingering taste of metallic ambrosia left her thirsty. She could hear the witches, could sense their frustration as they waited for her to wake.

This was supposed to have been her final Spring Break. Her last adventure before she graduated and moved to NYC for her new job. The last three years, she’d secretly tucked money aside, until taking her mom to Greece was something she could afford.

Thankfully, vampires didn’t need much sleep or an actual food budget. And after the horror of her high school - Elena being killed, those brief weeks the Originals had stuck around before disappearing? She’d only seen Klaus once, but it had marked her. Those iron filled eyes, the pitiless gaze that judged her and found her lacking. Still, she’d learned not to care what others thought of her.

And now for her all her vampire speed, she’d been kidnapped by a Greek Cult and her mother was dead. Exhausted, body weakened from the magic and ritual, for a moment darkness crept back along her eyes even as she fought it.

Shuddering a breath, she was drowning in flowers. There was power in the lingering darkness behind her eyes, but it was mere memory - something ancient and faded, gone with a laugh and the faintest flicker of sunshine power.

‘ _The gods lie entombed, little vampire; we dream of our broken stars. Be wary, for my dreams are not the only whispers cast into the world. Death lingers in your bones, life in your veins. Be wary, child of my King, daughter of my Sun.’_

Gasping awake, she rolled to her side and coughed the worst of the pollen, that lingering touch of something old from her lungs. Blinking open her lashes, she stared at the scorched marks of the altar she’d been bound to with vervain ropes while her mother bled over her. Rage welled in her chest, and her monster lunged.

When it was over, she was painted in gore. Lips trembling, she sat next to her mother’s body and waited for the sun. She’d lost her ring hours before, and grief and rage were her only company as dawn’s fingers crept along the sky.

Those golden rays did not burn.

* * *

 

She left Greece broken.

She headed to Spain, unwilling to return to the States. Standing on the sandy beach, she’d felt something flicker, a howling of darkness across an ocean. It wasn’t the call that frightened her, but the way everything lunged towards it - the blooming of yellow power in her veins.

’ _Be wary, for my dreams are not the only whispers cast into the world.’_

Arms tight around her middle, Caroline shivered, teeth chattering for a moment in the sun. She stared across the blue waters. She was still her. Caroline Forbes, daughter of Elizabeth Forbes, who was buried under the olive trees she’d loved. But she wasn’t girly little Caroline anymore, the world had changed.

It was so bright. She found herself the happiest in color - the brilliance of dawn, the heavy scent of flowers and the wild laughter of people. She felt magic against her skin, skirted witches and their horrors. Understood balance in a way that even witches would scoff at. Most vampires ignored her, the thirst of her monster concealed by sunshine in her veins.

She was so lonely.

It was something Caroline didn’t understand. She missed her mom so much she ached with it, but this set like a chill in her bones. The monster under her skin was near-feral with it at times - when the wind carried that howling, until she could almost taste the power of it. Heart hammering in her chest, fangs burning in her gums, she always fled.

London changed everything.

* * *

 

Caroline roamed the British Museum with curious eyes and a thirst she couldn’t explain. A month ago, she’d found and destroyed a cult that had recognized her. Fools. For ten years, she had moved from an uneasy alliance with the power she was given to accepting and cautiously exploring. Her tiny, balcony garden was thriving, and she thought next year she’d try for something more complicated than herbs.

But she was still a weapon, death a companion that lingered in her shadow. More importantly, she was still a monster. That last witch, with her matted curls had been just so willing to talk if she’d just end the pain.

“Hades is hunting you.”

Caroline arched one brow, curled her fingers a little tighter around the intestines she gripped between slick fingers. The witch screamed and went even paler. “I’m not prey.”

“You were supposed to be an offering,” she gasped out. “He’s so angry.”

She thought of that voice, of all the reading she’d done over the years, trying to understand. Hades had loved his wife. Caroline was still uncertain how gods who were dead and broken were influencing the world, but Persephone hadn’t sounded lonely. Just a soft sadness, when she spoke of whispers.

No, wherever Persephone rested, she wasn’t alone. So whatever part of Hades were crawling through the world had been stolen, not given. Well, she wasn’t an ancient goddess even if she wasn’t exactly a vampire anymore either. Whoever carried Hades in their blood could just deal without her.

“You thought bringing ancient power into this world was smart - so much for balance. If you’re right and Hades really is somewhere, then I bet he likes vampires, since we’re close to death and all. You should probably join us.”

She ignored the gurgling screams as she shoved blood down her throat before wrenching her neck. Hours later, the witch woke crying and Caroline stared at her with black eyes.

“If Hades finds you, when he finds you, tell him to hunt something else. I’m not Persephone and I don’t need him.”

So now she stood among artifacts that should have resonated with those bits of ancient power inside her and she felt nothing. Relief was heady on her tongue. Persephone would have known these works, but to Caroline they were they were just pretty pieces of pottery, interesting history.

She really was just Caroline.

“Hiding among the dead, love?”

Caroline twisted, stared at the man who stood so casually in the doorway to the exhibit, eyes glittering. Blinking in shock, she held her ground but it was a near thing. “Klaus.”

Those old eyes narrowed and he paced forward, curls rumpled, his beard hardly softening the hard line of his jaw.

“Caroline Forbes,” he murmured and her stomach flipped over at his tone. The wanting that unexpectedly left her flushed. She sucked in a breath as he nearly touched her, and she narrowed her eyes in warning. “Pretty little Caroline. I was not expecting this. Or should I call you Persephone?”

Caroline stepped around him and headed for the exit. “You’re an ass.”

Laughter brushed her skin as he followed and Caroline shook as she realized that bone deep loneliness was gone. Instead the power under her skin was burning through her veins, the world shimmering out of the corner of her eyes.

“Going somewhere?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Iron fingers caught her wrist, spun her around and into his chest. She hissed, fangs bared but he merely cupped her face and smiled. “You’re absolutely my business, sweetheart. You’ve run long enough.”

Caroline kicked him in the knee, jerked away as he snarled. Tossed her hair, as she stared him down. She remembered what it was like, to be rejected by this man, to be found as nothing more than child.

“I’m not yours,” she said flatly, refusing to bend as he straightened. “Whatever you think you know, whatever you think I might be, forget it.”

Klaus canted his head, stared at her with amusement. “You can’t hide from your blood.”

“What’s in my blood doesn’t need you,” Caroline said firmly. She ignored the tightening of his jaw, the blaze of fury behind his eyes. She wasn’t a child and her power had been given freely, not stolen through corrupt rituals. “And I don’t want you.”

He arched a brow, lines shifting to a challenge. “You will.”

Caroline snorted and rolled her eyes. “I sincerely doubt that.”

Klaus smiled, a slow seduction that left his cheeks creased, his eyes hot with challenge. “Oh sweetheart, I’m looking forward to changing your mind.”

She left him, in the hall of dead civilizations.

Refused to admit that part of her looked forward to it too.

* * *

 

Caroline accepted the mangled wrist, bit down with fangs as she was cradled against a hot chest, soft noises against her ear. The shock of his blood against her tongue shook her. Potent, drenched in a power that was old magic, she moaned.

“Take what you need, love.” Klaus murmured low and soft. “I’ve got you.”

She sank her fangs a little deeper in punishment. She’d dealt with the witches, and the werewolf bite burned but didn’t poison. But those lingering touches of Morpheus, the curse that had tried to dig into her skin had nearly dragged her under.

’ _Be wary, for my dreams are not the only whispers cast into the world.’_

And now, Klaus was in her veins.

They’d played Cat and Mouse, though she never knew who was hunting who. He stalked her across the globe, leaving presents and little insights into who she was and who she wanted to be. Living plants, bright paintings, gorgeous clothes that called to both woman and goddess. She dug in her heels, refused some, kept others and tried to ignore that niggling thought that he was courting her.

Then she’d been abducted. Not the first, not the last but with each beat of her heart he burrowed a little deep. His power pushed away Morpheus, sang through her veins like coming home and she shoved his wrist away with alarm.

She twisted, parted her lips to demand he release her when he kissed her. He licked her lips clean, chased his blood on her tongue and she melted against him. Hunger and contentment hummed in her chest, desire swam through her blood.

But it was the sting of his bite, that hot second of venom that her power burned through like sunshine that had her scrambling free. Eyes wide, body alive and wanting, she stared at him with a heaving chest.

Klaus smiled, licked his lips with his monster’s face and Caroline knew she was in trouble.

* * *

 

Caroline’s naked back pressed against the softest of grass, but she couldn’t care. Panting, head tossing, she whined as the mouth against her breast released her nipple; whimpered as that talented, talented mouth skimmed down her abdomen and pressed where she needed him the most.

He’d lured her into this garden, tempted her with the softest of lures. Here, surrounded by the sun and his power, she’d let him spring his trap. With each demanding stroke against her clit, each thrust of his fingers she cared less that she’d let him win.

Instead, she clung to him harder; let the storm of her orgasm wash through her. Wrapped her legs around his waist and claimed him too. Klaus reached for her with fangs and stolen power, and she met him and claimed him harder.

“You the most stubborn creature I’ve met, little love,” Klaus told her later, as she laid sprawled on his chest. “Why run?”

Caroline snorted, lifted her head. “Please, I’m worth enough to be wanted for me, not what lingered from a long dead goddess.”

“Is that what you thought?” Klaus asked, brows tucked together as he toyed with a curl.

“What else could have possibly attracted you?” Caroline replied in amusement. “I remember Mystic Falls just fine, Klaus. You saw me as nothing but a baby vampire. Then suddenly, I’m worth something.”

He shrugged, eyes narrowed. “I noticed you just fine, love. You thought otherwise? You, a creature of death and sunshine? But I’ve long dealt with the remains of a broken power, and while you were a temptation, it wasn’t one I had time to indulge.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He nipped her chin. “There is a reason the witches used you to draw a sleeping goddess’ attention, sweetheart. But that’s an argument for another day.”

Klaus rolled her, ignored her grumbling protest as flowers were crushed beneath their weight. “I have all the time to indulge now, and sweetheart, I have plans.”

Caroline smiled at him, cupped his face. “I suppose I’ll let you lead, for now.”

“You may take me to your heart’s content,” Klaus said as he kissed down her throat, lingering at her rapid pulse. “Later. Much, much later.”

His fangs buried in her throat and she arched, golden power sliding through her blood. Shuddered as he groaned against her skin, body filling hers.

Not all the stars were broken.

 


End file.
